A Gentleman-at-Arms: Being Passages in the Life of Sir Christopher Rudd, Knight

  *I*

  I hold it ill that a man should be under no constraint to labour for hisbread. To have a competency is indeed a comfortable thing; but being sopossessed, a man lacks a spur to high emprise, and his faculties arelike to wither and decay.

  It was my fortune to receive from my father a property sufficient tosupply the needs of the body; and the gear I added thereto in diversenterprises and adventures gave me the wherewithal to maintain a decentport before the world, and even at the Court of the Queen's Majesty,where a man had need be of some substance. But my ambition did not soara high pitch: I was content to play a modest part on the world's stage;and when I fell out of humour, as sometimes I did, with the fevered lifeat Court, I withdrew myself to my little estate in the country, andthere lived rustically among the boors and the pigs.

  Nevertheless, from having seen many men and cities in my time, I was notlong of finding this rustical employment stale upon me. After some fewmonths I would begin to yearn again for the stir and bustle of London,where I might at the least whet my wits that had grown dull and rustyamong my simple country fellows. One such time, in the late autumn ofthe year 1601, my years then numbering thirty, I rode out of Hampshireto London, and took up my lodging in King Street, in Westminster,rejoicing to meet my old friends again, to hear the clash of wits, andfeed my mind on the marvellous inventions of Will Shakespeare and BenJonson and other ornaments and luminaries of that glorious age.

  I found that two great matters were in men's mouths, whereof the one wasthe exceeding melancholy whereinto the Queen had sunk since thebeheading of my Lord Essex; the other, the rising of the O'Neill(otherwise the Earl of Tyrone) in Ireland, and the descent of somethousands of Spaniards upon the harbour of Kinsale to enfurther thatbase ungrateful traitor. King Philip having failed in his endeavour toget a grip upon the throat of England, was seeking to annoy herextremities, like as a blister upon the heel or a corn upon the toe. Iacknowledge that this news of his impudency made me itch and sweat toflesh my sword again on those enemies of my country; but I dalliedsomewhat, supposing that my Lord Mountjoy, who was now Lord Deputy in myLord Essex his room, would speedily make his account with the Irishrebels and their Spanish consorts. Furthermore, Ireland had alwaysshown me a forbidding aspect: I had heard much of its wildness, itsthick woods and filthy bogs, its savage and uncouth people, from menthat had served the Queen there and got thereby small thanks and lessrenown; and I had read of these matters also in the book of MasterSpenser, whereof a written copy (for it was not put in print until manyyears after) had come into my hands. For these reasons, therefore, Iwas no ways in the mind to adventure myself across the Irish Sea.

  But that winter, a day or two before Christmas, Sir Oliver St. Johnarrived in London out of that distressful country, bearing letters fromthe Lord Deputy and his council wherein they set down the exceeding hardstraits in which they rested for want of provisions and men. Theyrelated how they had annoyed all parts of the town of Kinsale with thebattery of their ordnance, so as the breach was almost assaultable,insomuch that they were not without hope of the enemy yielding, or oftheir being able to enter the town by force. But a thousand moreSpaniards had lately sailed into Castlehaven with great store ofmunition and artillery; and moreover the Spanish commander had besoughtthe O'Neill to haste to relieve him, who had accordingly come andencamped not far from the town with eight thousand men or more. TheLord Deputy therefore earnestly entreated the Lords of the Council inEngland to despatch to him without delay four thousand good footmen atthe least, with victuals, munition, and money.

  These urgent messages occasioned a notable stir among the Lords of theCouncil, and being laid before the Queen by master secretary Cecil,kindled her to an extremity of rage. Her Majesty had already been atgreat charges to sustain the Lord Deputy in his dealings with the rebelsand their Spanish aids, and being ever loth to untie her purse-strings,she bemoaned exceedingly the ruinous expense which this demand of theLord Mountjoy would cast upon her. Yet had she a proud spirit that illbrooked the thought of Spain planting a foot in any part whatsoever ofher dominions, and she was torn betwixt her parsimony and her care forthe common weal.

  It chanced that, having gone to Greenwich, where the Queen then was, tobear my part in the revels that were performed at Christmas-time, I camein the eye of Her Majesty one day as she passed through the hall. Shestayed her walk (alas! how tottering!), and as I rose up from bending myknee, my heart smote me to see how thin and frail her body was, albeither eye still flashed and glittered with the fire of her unquenchablespirit.

  "So, sirrah," quoth she, "you are come again out of your pigsty torefresh your snout with more delectable odours."

  Her Majesty was ever hard of tongue, and she bore me a grudge for that Ihad demitted the humble office I had one time held at her Court.

  "Madam," I said, "I have come like Eurydice, out of Tartarus into thebounteous light of the sun."

  "Ods fish! dost think to win me by thy flattery?" she said; neverthelessmethought she was not ill-pleased. But she went on, in a pitiful shrillvoice: "What does a proper man here in idlesse, conning soft speechesand inditing silly verses to silly wenches, when my kingdom of Irelandlieth in peril for lack of swords! Go to, rascal; an thou wouldstpleasure me, show thyself a man, and vex me not with lip service and theantics of an ape."

  Then, wellnigh breaking in two with her churchyard cough, she passed on,leaving me a sorry spectacle of confusion.

  Methought that now I could do no other thing than take up the challengewhich my wrathful Mistress had flung at me. In two breaths she hadcalled me swine and ape, and I grudged that in this her feeble old ageshe should hold me in low esteem. 'Twas too plain that she was not longfor this world, and the desire to please her, together with my oldlonging for a bout with the Spaniards, prevailed upon me to join myselfto those voluntaries that were proffering their service in Ireland.Accordingly I wrote a brief epistle to her Majesty, acquainting her ofmy design, and received for answer two lines in a quivering hand.

  "Chris, thou'rt a good lad. God bless thee with perseverance. Thyloving sovereign, E.R."